


Rain in the eyes

by RamaThorn



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Dreams, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mystery, Nostalgia, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-20 03:15:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20220889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RamaThorn/pseuds/RamaThorn
Summary: “I want to touch you,” whispered Harry on the exhale.Draco drew back a bit with a momentary painful expression on his face, lowered his gaze.“Don’t. You’ll wake up.”





	Rain in the eyes

**Author's Note:**

> This is a prologue actually to my work in progress, a little part that I just decided to translate to English. I am not sure if the whole work would appear here (or be finished at all for that matter) so please view it like one little separate work. Thank you.

The forest around was whispering in the language of leaves and insects. This conversation was thicker in the darkest of the shadows, living in between the massive trees and bushes. Twilight was coming. There was no one around and Harry lifted his head to the crowns of the trees, which were hiding the grey sky from the view. It was so high that almost no light reached the grass on the forest floor. Harry recognised this forest with a jolt. 

He often saw it in the nightmares, with its haunting shadows, quiet but always-present hum, which one doesn’t notice before they left the forest. Harry shivered, he didn't like the place the whole lot. But now for some unknown reason, the thick atmosphere was causing not fear but strange heavy calm. Before now Harry didn’t know it was possible to feel that way at all. This calm pushed all thoughts and concerns away and Harry made a step forward. He realised that he was supposed to find something - _someone_. The forest enveloped his figure with shadows the moment he started to make his way through the trees. The rustle of leaves and songs of insects was thick in Harry’s ears forming one whole buzz, sometimes it changed the loudness to almost uncomfortably loud but the next second it was barely audible. Wild thickets in his way were not a problem, they let him pass obediently. Soon there started to unfold a small clearing in between the tree trunks. Without the layer of the crowns above there was blinding sunlight. Harry flood with relief thinking he could finally get a little warmth. 

He went to the centre of the clearing and sat on the grass. There was some soft noise in the distance, the hum of the river and the ticking of the clock. Harry looked around. _He’s late_ he thought distantly. Harry turned to the sun and closed his eyes with the bliss, letting warm red shapes dance under his eyelids. He listened to the clock, with his luck there was very little time. But for now, he let himself to relax, feeling the tickles of the grass on his wrists. 

The noise coming from the bushes on the edge of the clearing reached Harry and he turned, opening his eyes. All the colours were too faded and grey after the warmth of the sun under the eyelids, and Harry blinked several times. He smiled the moment he recognised the coming figure. 

“Took you long this time.”

Draco Malfoy settled near him and sighed too tired for someone who just appeared for Harry’s liking. Harry pointed out his familiar pointed features through some slight fog; the pale skin, graciously warmed by the sun. Malfoy half-closed his eyes, relaxing a little. His light eyelashes were slightly trembling in the sunlight. For some reason, he looked like he was glowing quietly. 

“Potter, tell me,” The words were distant as though coming through the layer of cotton. “Do you hear the clock?”

Harry nodded. Vague anxiety stirred in his chest, he was constantly thinking these days that he was going to be late. He wondered how it far the Ministry would be from here if he took a taxi?

“What the clock is doing in the forest?” The sharp silver of his opened quickly eyes glittered in the sunlight.

Something hit Harry in the chest, leaving him sharply exhaling. And he remembered with a somehow familiar shock of recognition. This is a dream. The excitement shot through him and Harry shivered. Their meeting. Harry wiped away the last shock (he would never get used to the feeling of sharp transition from the dream to the realisation of that dream) and new hungrily inspected Malfoy (no, _Draco_).

They haven't met in a while. Harry smiled. “And why do you have to do it so abruptly every time?” 

Draco rolled his eyes but returned the grin. He was looking at hem with the same excitement Harry felt. 

“Why didn't you came earlier?” Harry observed one strand of the blond hair lightly falling on the Draco’s cheek. 

“It doesn’t matter, I’m here now. Why would you dream of the Forbidden Forest?’ He frowned a bit but not enough for that little line between his eyebrows that Harry knew well to form.

Harry carelessly shrugged. “Who knows. It is often in my nightmares but now it seems rather nice, doesn’t it?

Malfoy didn’t stop to frown and looked around them. The forest nearby was still sinking in shadows, and Harry only now noticed that the sunny day was only within the clearing, while the grey sky hung low above the trees. Everything now was almost perfectly quiet, the leaves trembled in the crowns, but the sound was not reaching the only visitors of the forest. A gentle breeze was wondering through a clearing that Harry didn’t feel, but saw the stir of the grass and light moving of the platinum hair of Draco.

“If you think it's _nice_, you don't know anything about nice, Potter. It’s called _uncanny_.” Draco said flatly and clearly unimpressed, peering into the distant shadows between the huge oak trees with trunks that Harry couldn't get arms around completely no matter how he’d try.

“Yeah, maybe but I didn’t realise that while I dreamt, did I?” Harry grinned a bit nervously. Now with the more clearer mind, he remembered why exactly he didn’t like this place. 

Draco looked at him and relaxed slightly. A comfortable silence hung between them for a while, broken only by the distant noise of the river and the clatter of the invisible dial. The sun was pleasantly warming the left side of Harry, for some reason it seemed selected from a certain memory.

“This sun reminds me of June at Hogwarts, when we were gathering by the lake after exams, remember?” Harry closed his eyes again, turning to face the light. “The third year. Ron, Hermione and I loved to sit in the last days by the lake before the holidays and discuss how we managed the exams. Perhaps this was one of the few years when the end of the term was not overshadowed by anything terrible and I had to lie in a hospital or something ... Not that it was without any adventures, of course! 

Harry smiled to the memory. It seemed now like a story from so far away, almost made up. Under the eyelids, along with dancing red circles, there appeared some images from memory, too vague in a dream to distinguish, but still causing Harry's chest to contract slightly with nostalgia. He opened his eyes and turned to Draco and found him studying Harry with a peculiar expression on his face. Harry knew that expression. It made his heart to clench unpleasantly, but so desirable that a hot wave passed through Harry. He could not take his eyes off the grey ones opposite. They always reminded him of a stormy sky.

“I want to touch you,” whispered Harry on the exhale. 

Draco drew back a bit with a momentary painful expression on his face, lowered his gaze.

“Don’t. You’ll wake up.”

Harry knew he was right. The sound of the Forbidden Forest around returned, filling everything with a whisper of foliage and insects. The sun faded over their heads. Harry looked up and saw rapidly gathering clouds.

“Rain is coming,” he muttered distantly. As if in response, silvery clouds rumbled approvingly distant peal of thunder somewhere in the depths of the sky.

“I would give anything to remember what happens in reality when I'm here,” Draco said bitterly, pulling his knees to his chest and wrapping his arms around them. 

Harry sighed. _I would too._ They have spoken about this many times. Draco could not remember where he was or what he was doing before falling asleep. When they tried to touch, Harry was waking up sharply and dizzy. Memories of a dream unfolding a second ago slipping through his fingers. And after a minute Harry couldn’t remember any words, events, or images. Only stole scratches of emotions swayed in the head, suffocating him in the middle of the night or the early morning. The day after that Harry always would be spent with something elusive deep in consciousness with a clear sense of wrongness. So they did not dare to touch.

“Sometimes I think it's torture,” Draco sounded almost strangled. Harry knew what he was talking about.

“This is all we have.”

Their eyes met, and Harry held his breath as he looked into those stormy orbs. Thunder again snapped from above, the wind intensified, lifting grass and fallen leaves into the air. The trees trembled furiously with branches, dropping the rapidly yellowing foliage. The glade was gradually losing life. Harry raised his hand and held it to Draco without touching. In response, he raised his, slightly trembling, to Harry's palm. They seemed to be on both sides of the mirror like this, copying the gesture. Harry didn't feel the heat of the skin. His heart swam with resentment and the desire to just touch and feel another living person.

“This is pathetic” Draco smirked but his eyes were dangerously shining. 

“Please don’t. It will rain, you’ll see.”

Draco broke into a laugh, removing abruptly his outstretched hand and clenching it into a fist.

“It will rain. Rain! Right, because rain will pour out of my grey eyes, Potter!" the bitter laugh was more like a howl, Harry’s throat clenched painfully. Lightning flashed.

“You have the most beautiful eyes I've seen,” Harry said quietly through a lump in his throat.

“What is the point if we do not exist in reality?” Draco stopped laughing, his voice a little louder than a whisper.

“We exist.” Harry was not sure.

Draco just grimaced and averted his eyes, looking into the forest around them, even more dark and unfriendly. It was getting cool, the ozone cracked in the air, the sounds around died down again, giving way to heavy silence before the rain. The clock pounded louder with every passing second, painfully pressing into the head. Harry felt that he would wake up soon, everything began to slowly blur along the edges. He stubbornly looked at Draco, absorbing every detail, swearing this time to remember everything, but he knew this was doomed to failure.

“I do not like this forest. You should wake up.” Draco remarked almost distantly, not looking at him.

“No. I will stay here.”

“Yes, of course,” Draco smirked maliciously. “Stop that.”

Harry moved as close as possible without touching Draco. He wanted more time, just a few more seconds. The clock pounded mockingly in his ears, hurrying. Draco looked at him, his deep grey eyes floating threateningly.

“It will rain soon. Wake up,” he said, smiling.

Tick-tock.

“I love it when it rains.” Harry didn’t.

Draco smiled wider, despite his trembling lips. Tick-tock.

“Of course. Wake up. I will wait for you in the next dream,” he blinked and one tear rolled down the pale cheek. At the same time, the first drop fell from the sky, shattering on Harry's cheek.

This was the last thing Harry felt before waking up. He sat abruptly in the dark, his heart pounding in his ears. He raised slightly trembling fingers to his cheek. Wet.


End file.
